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Doesn't your brain derive knowledge through statistical inference? How else? I can imagine the AGI of the future (having perfected knowledge gathering through statistical inference) some day saying: "Humans perform tricks for treats. The tricks they do are impressive. But don’t be deceived, they aren’t wired to gain knowledge."

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I didn’t claim that the way brains work didn’t include statistical inference. That’s why the dog metaphor works. Both the dog and the machine learning model use statistical inference to perform tricks.

Dogs haven’t been to the moon, however. There’s more to the brain we don’t understand.

I'm curious why you think a "difference in kind" rather than simply "difference in degree" must exist between us and dogs.

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